Sunday, 12 June 2016

Ginger and rum cake

I
think I must be a contrarian baker. Now that summer actually seems to have
arrived, I know I should be thinking about strawberries, cream and other such
light frippery….but what I really wanted this week was ginger cake. And
rum. And dates. And all things that make you think of colder
weather (not that I even like colder weather). As I said – contrarian.

This
cake is always better the day after baking, and the day after that; it’s always
the way with sticky spicy cakes – they need time to mellow and let their
flavours mature. I do have a penchant for rum and have a selection at
home that would rival most cocktail bars; for this cake I chose a spiced rum as
I thought the extra punch of flavour would work well. Spiced rum always
seems to have a vanilla note to it too and I never miss the opportunity to get
a bit of vanilla into something.

You
can taste each of the main flavours in the cake: ginger, dates and rum. Putting the rum in the icing gives a raw hit –
if you like your booze softer, and more baked, consider putting more in the
cake and leaving it out of the icing.

Without
checking through almost nine years of blogging, I don’t remember putting dates
into a ginger cake before. It was a good move – it turned a standard
ginger cake into something more akin to a sticky toffee pudding. You could
leave the icing off this cake and serve it warm, as dessert, with custard or
ice cream. Personally, I am always partial to a white icing and a bit of
the itchy teeth feel it can sometimes create. Many older people I know
have lost their taste for overly sweet things…I do sometimes wonder if it will
ever happen to me. I just can’t imagine being that person who winces when
they eat something and say, ‘ooh, that’s a bit sweet for me’. Does. Not. Compute.

Place
the butter, sugar, treacle and golden syrup into a saucepan and melt together
over a gentle heat.

Leave
to cool for at least 5 minutes before beating in the eggs and rum – if the mix
is too hot the eggs will scramble and leave lumps in the cake. Not nice.

Stir
in the flour and ground ginger.

Stir
in the chopped ginger and dates.

Pour
into the prepared baking tin.

Bake
for 50 minutes – 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out
clean.

Leave
to cool for 10-15 minutes in the tin, before de-tinning and leaving to cool
completely on a wire rack.

Now
make the icing: mix the icing sugar with 1 tablepsoon each of rum and ginger
syrup – add the extra spoonful of rum only if needed. You’re aiming for a
thick, glossy icing that has movement to it but isn’t so loose it will just run
off the cake.

Spoon
the icing over the cake and leave to set.

This
cake gets better with age – it becomes stickier and more flavoursome.

10 comments:

My husbands also loves winter time..snow makes him really happy. I always love to bake with ginger, fresh or powder, and anther favourite here is black treacle. This is one great moist cake with lots of great flavours.

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